The scents and sounds were just a colorful blur, though, her senses attuned to Gervais. The warm heat of his body through his soft silk suit. His fingers flexing lightly on her back, his thumb grazing bare skin where a cutout in her dress left her exposed.
She swallowed. Each fast breath of air she dragged in pressed her breasts to the hard wall of his chest, reminding her how well her body knew his. What would it be like to be with him now, with her senses so heightened? It had been incredible two and a half months ago.
She couldn’t hold back a soft purr. She covered by saying, “The music is beautiful.”
“It’s the heartbeat of our city. The rhythm the whole place moves to.”
He whirled her past the bass player, where the deep vibrations hummed right through her feet.
“There’s so much more about my hometown to show you beyond our sports. So much history and culture here. And of course, some amazing food.”
Which she could still smell drifting on the breeze. The scent of spices thickened the air, making the heat of the evening seem more exotic than any of the places she’d ever been to during her stint in the military.
“I cannot deny this Big Easy fascinates me.” She could lose herself in these brick-and-wrought-iron-laced streets, the scent of flowers heavy in the air. “But I want to be clear, as much as I enjoyed the food tonight, or how much I might like the sound of jazz, that is not going to make me automatically change my mind about your proposal. We have nothing in common.”
His voice tickled in her ear, a murmur accompanying the jazz quartet. “Sure we do. We both come from big families with lots of siblings.”
A shiver trembled along her skin, and she reminded herself it was just the pregnancy making her so susceptible to him. It had to be. No man could mesmerize a woman so thoroughly otherwise. Her hormones simply conspired against her.
“I guess your family does qualify as American royalty.” She held up her end of the conversation, hoping he could not see the effect he had on her. “So that is one thing we have in common. Just minus the crowns.”
“True. No tiaras here.” His head dipped closer to speak in her ear again. “Although thinking of you in a tiara and nothing more—that’s an image to die for.”
She knew he joked. That did not stop her from imagining being naked with him.
“An image that will have to remain in your mind only, since I do not pose for pictures. After what happened to my sister because of the sex tape with the prime minister,” she said, shuddering, “not a chance.”
Gervais almost missed a step, though he recovered quickly enough.
“Your sister was in a sex tape?”
“You must be the only person in the world who did not see it.” That snippet of footage had almost ruined her family. The publicity was all the more difficult to deflect, since their monarchy was both defunct and not particularly wealthy. They’d had precious few resources to fight with.
“Never mind.” Gervais shook his head, dismissing that conversation. “That’s beside the point. First, I wasn’t speaking literally. And second, I would never, never let you be at risk that way.”
Her neck craned to look at him, eyes scanning his face. There was no amusement in her eyes. “Perhaps more to the point, I will not put myself at risk.”
“You’re an independent princess. I like that.”
“Technically, I am a princess in name only. The monarchy doesn’t have ruling power any longer.”
“Fair enough.”
Gervais spun her away from him. There was a moment before she returned to the heat of his body that left her with anticipation. She wanted him to keep touching her, to keep pressing his body against hers.
After they resumed their rhythmic swaying, he said softly into her ear, “You are pretty well-adjusted for someone who grew up in a medieval castle surrounded by servants and nannies.”
“What makes you think we had servants and nannies?”
A smile played with his sexy mouth. “That princess title.”
She rolled her eyes. “The castle was pretty crumbly and we had some maintenance help, since we opened part of the palace to the public, and tutors volunteered just to have it on their résumé that they’d taught royalty. But definitely no nannies.”
“Your parents were the involved types.” Somehow they had gotten closer, lips barely a breadth away from each other. The thought of how close he was made it hard for Erika to concentrate. So she pulled back a bit, adjusting her head to look out over the crowd, toward the band.
“Not really. After class we had freedom to roam. We were quite a wild pack of kids. Can you imagine having your own real-life castle as a playground? We had everything but the unicorn.”
“You make it sound fun.”
“Some days it was fun. Some it was lonely when I saw the kids on tour with their parents.” She hesitated. The last thing she wanted from Gervais was sympathy. She’d accepted what her family was and was not a long time ago. So she continued, “And some days were downright dangerous.”
“What do you mean?”
“My sisters and I wanted a trampoline for Christmas.” Which sounded perfectly normal. Except for the Mitras clan, there was no such thing as normal.
“Okay. And?”
“You do not get those on royal grounds. It does not fit the historical image, and without the tours we didn’t have money. So, we made our own.”
“Oh, God.” A look of horror and intrigue passed over his face.
“We pulled a couple of mattresses down the stairs, stacked them under a window... And we jumped.”
Gervais’s eyes widened. “From how high?”
She shrugged. “Third story. And the ceilings were high.”
“You’re making me ill.”
“It was only scary the first time when one of my sisters pushed me.” And, later, when another sister broke an arm and the game ended for good.
“Pushed you?” Disbelief filled his voice. Surely his brothers had done equally dangerous things as forms of entertainment when they had been younger.
She’d seen the Reynaud males up close, and there was an air of confidence and arrogance about all of them that didn’t exactly coincide with a sheltered upbringing.
“I was the test dummy,” she informed him. “As the youngest and the lightest, it was my job to make sure the mattress had been placed correctly and had enough bounce.”
“And did it?”
“We had to add some duvets and pillows.”
“So it hurt.”
“Probably no more than playing football without shoulder pads.”
Tucking a loose strand of her hair behind her ear, he whispered, “You’re such a badass. I expected a story like that from a family of boys, but not girls.”
Not all girls were the descendants of female warriors. And that was usually the justification for their shenanigans as children. “We considered it our gym class. It was more interesting than lacrosse.”
“Lacrosse, huh? I didn’t expect that.” He brushed his lips across her temple, his breath warm, his brief kiss warmer.
Her body even warmer still with want.
Just when she thought she would grip his lapels and melt right into him, he stepped back.
“I should get you home, Princess. It’s late.”
And just like that, the fairy-tale book was closing. She felt close to him all evening, physical distance aside. And every time it seemed as if there was something more between them, he pulled back.
While part of her was relieved that he’d stopped pushing for more, a larger part of her wanted him. She had to weigh her options. Had to be strong for her unborn children and make the wisest decision possible. It wasn’t just her life in the balance.
* * *
After a sleepless night dreaming of Gervais’s touch, Erika hadn’t awoken in the best of moods. And now she had to make the phone call she had been dreading. The one that had sent her on edge all morning long until she found her courage and started dialing.
Erika sat on the chaise longue in the guest room as she hugged the device to her ear and listened to the call ring through on the other side of the world. She needed to speak with her parents and tell them that she was pregnant. With twins. There was no sense in avoiding the inevitable any longer.
Her mother answered the phone. “Hello, my love. What brings about this lovely surprise of a call?”
“Um, does there have to be a special reason for me to call you?”
“There does not have to be, but I hear a tone in your voice that tells me there is a reason. Something important perhaps?”
Her mother’s surprise intuition tugged at her already tumultuous emotions.
“I am pregnant. With twins.” The words tumbled out of her mouth before she had even had a chance to respond to the pleasantries with her mom.
So much for the long speech Erika had outlined and perfected. Glancing down at the piece of paper in front of her, she noted that her talking points were basically for show. There was no going back now.